


Fall Forward, Fall Together

by LovelyLessie



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, First Meetings, Modern Era, Moving Out, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3447851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLessie/pseuds/LovelyLessie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a summer where a lot of things are changing. Marius Pontmercy is moving in with a new roommate; Cosette Fauchelevent is leaving her parents' house for the first time; and Éponine Thénardier may be losing her best friend and only confidant. </p><p>As autumn comes, the three of them find their paths crossing and intertwining in unexpected ways - mixed in with love, new lives, old secrets, and a group of friends which could, perhaps, become a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Marius Moves House

Courfeyrac’s apartment is a moderately spacious single-bedroom flat at the top of his building, in a state of disarray which borders on chaos but manages to seem inviting rather than unpleasant. “Sorry about the mess,” he says cheerfully as he lets Marius into the front room. “I’d have tidied up, but, ah - I thought I better not give you any false impressions. This  _is_ what it’s usually like here, so if you can’t live peacefully with that, best if we clear it up now.”

“Right,” Marius agrees as he sheds his jacket, “of course.” There doesn’t seem to be a hook or a coatrack to hang his jacket on, so he just holds it in his empty hand. “It, uh, it should be fine,” he adds, as an afterthought, as he looks around to take in the magazines scattered across the table and the coffee mugs balanced precariously on the arm of a chair. 

“Great!” Courfeyrac says. “That’s part of why I moved out of my old place, you see. I was living with friends, with my boyfriend and our - well, partner, but not romantically - anyways, ey’s my best friend in the world, but this - ” He gestures rather dramatically at the room. “ - was hard for em to deal with. Among other difficulties.”

“Well,” says Marius with a nervous laugh, “ _anything_ would be an improvement on where I was living before - but even so I don’t mind it, it’s really alright.”

“I’m glad,” Courfeyrac tells him from around the corner of the next room over. “Do you want coffee?” He looks around the edge of the door and raises an eyebrow. “You can put your stuff down, you know.”

“Oh,” Marius replies, and doesn’t put his jacket down. “Coffee would be nice, thank you, if you’re making it already - if not, don’t worry about it, I’m quite alright either way.”

“Give me just a minute,” calls Courfeyrac. “So the place you were living - are living, I guess - what’s the matter with it, then?”

“Oh, God,” he says, and laughs weakly. “Where to begin? It’s the landlords, mostly - and, well, the air doesn’t work much, you could _bake_ in my room - and I _think_ there are mice, though I haven’t _seen_ any mice, and the landlady keeps telling me there aren’t any, but -“

“Good God!” Courfeyrac cries, coming around the corner with two cups of coffee. “Well, I don’t think I’ve got mice, at least - and I’ve never had any problem with the landlady. Are you _going_ to sit down? Here’s your coffee, let me take that - “ He grabs the coat from Marius and throws it over the back of the couch. “Make yourself at home! It’s going to be, after all, if you still want to move in.”

“Yes,” Marius says very quickly, nodding. “Yes, absolutely, I do.”

“Then for God’s sake sit down,” Courfeyrac says. “Let’s talk about living arrangements.”

He gingerly takes a seat on the couch where Courfeyrac threw his jacket, clutching his coffee cup in both hands. “I don’t take up much space,” he says, “for what that’s worth.”

“I can tell,” says Courfeyrac, grinning as he throws himself down on the couch next to Marius, draping one arm over the back cushions. “Just as well, since we’ll have to share a room - unless we moved, I suppose, but I don’t expect even together we could afford anything bigger than this.”

“I could sleep on the couch if you prefer,” Marius offers. “It won’t bother me, really, I can sleep anywhere, I’m very good at it.”

“Oh, don’t be absurd,” Courfeyrac says good-naturedly. “I’ve got a spare mattress for whenever friends need to crash for a night; you can sleep on that for now, and we’ll sort out real furnishings once you’re settled, what do you say to that?”

“That sounds lovely,” Marius agrees meekly. 

“Excellent!” Courfeyrac grins and claps him on the shoulder, jostling him so much his coffee almost spills. “Then I suppose my next question ought to be when your lease is up?”

He sighs and leans his head back. “Not until the end of next month, technically. Even if I leave now, I’ll have to pay August’s rent.”

Courfeyrac sips his coffee and considers this thoughtfully. “Well,” he says after a moment’s thought, “no need for you to stay in the place if you’ve got somewhere else to go, regardless, is there? We’ll get you moved in here as soon as you’re ready.”

“How soon will you let me?” Marius asks, perhaps a little more eagerly than he ought to.

At that, Courfeyrac laughs. “Well, I’ll need to tidy a bit,” he admits, “before the place can really handle another resident - but I could have it done as soon as this evening.”

“I’ll be ready,” Marius says, and sets down his cup to clasp Courfeyrac’s hand. “Thank you, my God, thank you from the bottom of my heart - you don’t know how grateful I am, really, you don’t.”

“Don’t mention it, my friend,” Courfeyrac replies, beaming. “Don’t mention it.”

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t have much to move, so when he departs he assures Courfeyrac he won’t need any help - which is true, as long as he takes a cab back over when he’s packed, since it _will_ be an awful lot to carry several blocks to the train station, and besides that the thought of trying to take the train with all of his things is daunting no matter _how_ little he’s taking.

When he returns to his room for the last time, he pulls his suitcase out from under the bed and kicks it open so he can start packing. It’s the same suitcase he took with him when he left the house, then packed with a few books, a change of clothes, his quilt, and his poor worn-out stuffed toy; now he’s acquired more books and journals, and a new wardrobe entirely, though not much larger than the one he had before. That’s the extent of his worldly possessions, but it’s still, to his dismay, more than is going to fit in the suitcase. 

He shakes his head and sighs, looking around at the crowded and unpleasant room, stifling with only sticky summer heat coming through the windows. Well - he’s got to start somewhere, so he grabs his quilt and stuffs it into the suitcase, crumpling it up as tightly as he can. Then his clothes, he thinks - some of his books can go in his other bag, perhaps, though they’ll be heavy to carry over his shoulder. 

He’s trying to get his better shoes to fit in on top when a voice behind him says, “You’re leaving.”

Marius startles a little, though he’s gotten rather accustomed to surprise visits in the past two years he’s lived here. “Éponine,” he says, turning to see her standing in his doorway. “Hi.”

She angles her head at him, frowning. “You didn’t say,” she adds tonelessly, but the look she fixes on him is hard and sharp.

“You knew I’d found a roommate,” he tells her, bemused. “I thought you’d have guessed I must be going soon!”

“You didn’t _say,”_ she repeats, stubborn as ever, and plants her feet in the door. 

He stares up at her helplessly, spreading his hands. “No,” he says, “I’ve been at Courfeyrac’s all morning, I haven’t seen you!”

This does not appease her; if anything, it makes it worse. She huffs and curls her hands into fists, her face scrunched into a scowl. “You’re leaving and you didn’t say!” she says again, her voice rising, loud enough to make him cringe away a little.

“You don’t need to shout at me!” he says, giving her a baleful look. “I was going to say goodbye, you know - for God’s sake, you can’t think I’d have left without _telling_ you.”

Her shoulders slump and she drops her eyes, though her look is still dark and sullen. “Well,” she murmurs, “if you’d said I’d have helped you pack.”

“I thought you didn’t want to help me pack.”

“I never said I wouldn’t do it.” 

Scuffing her feet against the floor, she comes into the room and crosses to the crooked table he uses for a desk. He goes to the broken wardrobe and pulls out the last two shirts, to fold them up and put them in his suitcase; she stacks up his books and carries them over, tucking them in sideways so more can fit. In silence, they pack away the rest of his things, and he buckles his bag while she closes and fastens the suitcase.

“Here,” he says, digging a crumpled five-euro note out of his pocket and offering it. “For helping me.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she replies without looking at him.

For a moment he holds it out, but she doesn’t move to take it. Slowly, he puts the note back in his pocket. 

When he looks up again he sees that she’s shaking, and realizes - very belatedly, he’s sure - that she’s trying her hardest not to cry. 

“Oh, God, Éponine,” he says, feeling terribly guilty. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re leaving,” she says, but this time she doesn’t sound angry, just very, very unhappy. She still won’t lift her head; she wraps her arms around herself, very small, practically drowning in her too-big coat. 

“Oh,” he says, his mouth falling open. “ _Oh._ ” He searches both pockets trying to find the receipt where he wrote Courfeyrac’s address and, finding it, takes her hand and presses the crumpled scrap of paper into her palm. “There - take that, ‘Ponine, you can come visit me - when you’re able, of course.” He catches her other hand and clasps it between his. “I’ll still be in Paris, after all, it’s not as if I’m moving so far away.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and looks up with a shaky half-smile. “I’ll come by when I can.”

To his surprise, at that she falls forward and throws her arms around him, her face buried in his chest. He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just hugs her back clumsily until she straightens and pretends he doesn’t see her wipe her eyes with the back of one hand.

“Come on,” she says. “I’ll wait with you for a cab.”

 

 


	2. In Which Éponine Has Things to Consider

Éponine’s days are quiet after Marius goes; she stays out of the apartment as much as she can when she’s not running errands for her father, avoids her siblings, doesn’t look anyone in the eye. She hates change to begin with, hates anything that interferes with her life from day to day or shakes up the habits she’s fallen into - but beyond that she _misses_ him. She’s gotten so used to sharing her time with him that with him gone she finds herself feeling lost and lonely, with no desire to speak to anyone else.

“What’s the matter with you?” Azelma demands a few days later as she comes into their room and kicks closed the door behind her. “You’ve been strange all week.”

“Nothing,” she murmurs, turning away to face the wall and drawing her arms around herself. 

Azelma makes a huffy noise and tosses herself down on her bed across the room, making the springs creak and complain. A moment passes in silence, and then she says, more quietly, “Maman’s complaining about you.”

“What have I done now?” Éponine turns her head to look at her sister over her shoulder.

“Dunno,” Azelma says, shrugging. “Only that she’s mad, I heard her talking to Father about it down in the shop.”

Éponine groans and buries her face in the pillow. “Hell! He’ll be angry, too.”

“I don’t think he will. He only told her to be quiet.”

“You watch!” Éponine says, still talking into the pillow. “You know how he is, it’ll be on my head for giving her a reason to complain. Have to keep Maman happy so she doesn’t bother him.”

She sighs and rolls over to get to her feet, taking her coat from the end of her bed where she threw it coming in that afternoon and pulling it on. Azelma watches her, brow furrowed, lips pursed. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“Out,” Éponine replies, turning up her collar. 

“Maman’s gonna see you,” Azelma says.

“She won’t see me. I’m not stupid, I won’t get in her line of sight.” She pulls the door open and steps into the hall. “I’m my father’s daughter, after all.”

“If you don’t catch trouble now you’ll catch it later!” Azelma shouts after her, but she slams the door on her sister’s voice and ducks out of the apartment.

 

* * *

 

She has no destination in mind, just the thought to get out of the apartment, and she’s been walking aimlessly for half an hour before the idea comes to her that while she’s out, she might go visit Marius.

His address is still in her coat pocket, and she pulls it out, smoothing the receipt with her fingers and holding it close to her face to examine it. In the dim light and without her glasses on, it’s hard to see the writing clearly, but she manages to make it out: _Apt 3A 42 Rue Saint-Placide._

Humming, she shoves both her hands in her pockets and sets off down the street.

Rue Saint-Placide is halfway across Paris - on the other side of the Boulevard Saint-Michel, near the University Descartes where he’s going to school in the fall. When she gets to the end of the street, evening has already turned into a heavy dusk, and up and down the street the shops still open spill bright patches of light across the pavement.

She stops outside of number 42 and looks up at the windows. Three floors up and to the left, the windows are open, the lights on in one and filtering through to the other. Inside shapes are moving, indistinct and hazy from here. She thinks that one of them must be Marius.

Drawing her coat around herself, she approaches the door and then stops. For a long few seconds, she doesn’t move, torn between calling him down to speak with him or letting him enjoy himself with his new roommate.

A moment passes in silence.

She lowers her head and turns away, retracing her steps and crossing the street so that she can look back from the other side and see that soft-edged gleam of light from his apartment, that shadow when he passes by the window.

In silence she watches for a minute more, and then quickly ducks her head and makes her way back down the street, back towards home.

 

* * *

 

Night’s fallen properly by the time she comes home, and she slips in silently, careful not to let the door make a sound when it closes behind her. For a moment she hovers in the stairwell, listening with her head against the wall, but inside the shop it’s quiet. She wasn’t seen.

Light-footed she creeps up the stairs, past their apartment and up to the one above. The door isn’t locked; it swings open at a touch. 

The room inside is vacant, dark, still; the bed frame bare and the mattress leaned up against the wall, the table cleared off and the wooden chair resting on top of it, the wardrobe standing open and gutted. When she steps inside there’s a skittering sound and she catches the movement of a mouse darting under the wardrobe. The air is stale and hot, with the windows closed and locked.

She crosses the room and drops to the floor to crawl under the table and sit there, knees drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped around them, humming quietly, sadly to herself. It’s too quiet otherwise, with Marius gone. Good for Marius, off to get his education, living in some airy flat in the heart of the city! She can hardly blame him for it, after all.

Downstairs she hears voices, muffled through the floor so she can’t make out the words - Maman’s voice raised and furious, a sharp half-shouted reply - Gavroche, she thinks. Something slams, and she cringes. 

She hates to think what’d happen to him and Azelma if she weren’t around. But - 

She’s spent a lot of time, the past two years, sitting in this room and talking to him, when things got too heated downstairs and she had to slip away. A lot of time joking with him about leaving this slum behind. When they were old enough - no _reputable_ landlord takes a sixteen-year-old’s signature on a lease. He turned eighteen in June, of course, and she doesn’t until the start of November - but that’s only a few months away, now.

Not that she could _afford_ an apartment - not that she has any money, or a job, or a bank account, or any other of the hundred different things she’d need to leave. Not that she has any way to _get_ any of them, without her parents knowing.

She takes a shaky breath and lets it out through her teeth, scrubbing at her eyes with the heel of one hand. Stupid thing to start crying about. As if she could do a thing about it now, anyways.

 _Get ahold of yourself,_ she thinks, and shakes her head, pressing her face against her knees.

 

* * *

 

Azelma’s wrong; she doesn’t get into trouble that night, because her father’s still in the shop when she comes in, and her mother’s already exhausted her temper on Gavroche. She walks hardly noticed through the front room and into the bedroom she shares with her siblings, closing the door behind her.

“Hey, Éponine,” Gavroche says. “How’re you tonight?”

“Fine,” she says. “Get off my bed.”

He sticks his tongue out at her between his teeth, and Azelma, watching, laughs. 

Éponine shakes her head, biting back a smile. “Brat,” she says, shedding her coat and boots by the bedroom door and throwing herself down next to her brother. “Move over, then.”

“Why should I?” he retorts. “You’re like a rail, you don’t need much space. Me, I’m getting bigger.” He sits up halfway to grin at her, his eyes gleaming. “When I’m bigger than you are, I’ll throw you out of your bed and make _you_ sleep on the floor!”

“I’d like to see you try!” she says, and surges up to throw an arm around his neck and pull him into a headlock. 

“Help!” he cries, laughing as he squirms and wriggles in her grip, pushing against her side with one hand. “Alright, alright, I’ll go! Get off!”

“Too late!” she says, tousling his hair with one hand. “You’re done for already!”

“Shh,” Azelma says, though she’s giggling. “Not so loud, we’ll make Maman angry.”

Éponine releases him and falls back against the mattress. “Go on, Gav,” she says, waving him away halfheartedly.

“Nah,” he says, and flops down beside her, scrunching up his nose at her. 

She sighs. “Oh, alright,” she agrees. “You can stay, long as you go to sleep! Azelma, would you put out the light?”

Without looking up she hears Azelma pad across the floor to hit the switch. In the dark she can’t see her siblings at all, only feel Gavroche curled up next to her and hear Azelma moving across the room.

“Night, Ponine,” Azelma says, her covers rustling as she pulls them up around her chin.

Éponine shifts around to slip her feet under her own covers, ignoring Gavroche’s complaints. “Night, Azelma,” she says. “Night, Gavroche.”

“Night, both of you,” he mumbles, and the room falls silent. She closes her eyes, listening as their breaths slow and settle into the same quiet steady pattern of sleep. 

It’s a long time, lying awake in the dark room and thinking hard about what she ought to do, before she joins them.

 


	3. In Which Cosette Announces Her Decision

“I’ve decided,” Cosette says over dinner, in her very most insistent tone, “that I’m going to move out.”

That she has been carefully planning and calculating how to deliver this news makes the silence which follows it no less tense, but she keeps her composure, a small smile on her face and her eyes wide and guileless. With that calm look she glances from her mother on one side to her papa on the other, while they exchange a slow look with each other.

“Are you,” her papa says, in a light voice which is betrayed by the heaviness of his brow and the tightness around the corners of his mouth. 

“I am,” she says, quite firmly, “this summer. I’d like to find a roommate in the next week who I could live with, someone who’s a student too, and be moved in before the end of August.”

“So sudden?” asks Fantine, raising her eyebrows and pressing a finger to her lips. 

“When did you decide this?” adds her papa, leaning forward over the table.

Cosette doesn’t let her smile falter; she was hoping she would avoid the interrogation, but it’s not exactly a surprise to hear it. “I’ve been thinking about it for some time,” she replies firmly, meeting his eyes. “And I’ve put out an advertisement already looking for a roommate.”

He closes his eyes and opens his mouth as if to speak, then changes his mind. Her mother stares wide-eyed at her, and she thinks her smile must be beginning to seem a little forced. 

“You might have brought it up to us,” her papa says. “I think we could have offered… insight.”

“You can still give me insight!” she says, beaming at him.

He sighs heavily, still frowning at her, but to her surprise it’s her mother who speaks first. “There’s no reason you need to move out so soon,” she says gently. “You can certainly go to your classes and live here at home.”

“Of course,” Cosette agrees. “But really, I think I’d like to live with someone else from university.”

“Wouldn’t it make better sense for you to stay at home until you’ve made some friends there?” her mother presses. “You could move in with someone you know already, then, next semester. You’re such an outgoing child, you wouldn’t have any trouble, I don’t think.”

Cosette bites her tongue on the several comments she could make regarding Fantine’s friends when _she_ was in college. Besides, she knows that’s the point, after all; her mother only wants to keep her safe. Instead, she says, “Mother, you know I can make friends quickly enough, and there’s still more than a month left before classes start.” She pauses, angling her head and offering a winning smile. “And if I can’t find a roommate I’ll get on with, well, I know I can always put off moving out as long as I need to.”

“I think it’s more than getting on with someone,” her father says, watching her very seriously. “There’s a lot to consider. I don’t mean to discourage you, my dear, but how deeply have you really thought this through?”

“Papa,” she says.

“How do you mean to afford it all?” he presses. “Will you be able to find a place with two rooms, that you and someone else can afford? Somewhere safe for Jonquille and Jacinthe?”

“ _Papa,”_ she repeats, looking at him in exasperation. 

“How will you keep yourself safe?” he asks, ignoring her protests entirely. “Are you certain you’re ready to live on your own? To cook your own meals? To do your own housework? Are you quite sure, Cosette, that you can manage it all as well as university?”

“Father!” she says, very loudly, and he breaks off, a little startled. She puffs out her cheeks at him, arms folded. “For God’s sake,” she goes on, “I’ve been thinking about it all summer! I _know_ how to do housework, Papa, I can cook, I can get my own groceries - and I’ve been taking care of Jonquille and Jacinthe for years on my own, I _know_ how to look after them!”

“I know you do,” he says, and sighs, pulling off his glasses to rub at his eyes with one hand. “I know that. I’m only concerned, that’s all.”

“Of course you are,” she says. “But, Papa - Mother - I’m not a _child_ anymore.” She looks at them each in turn, wide-eyed and pouting slightly. “I’ll get a job, a proper one - and I’ve _said_ in my advertisement I’ve got birds who need space, and I know I can come home if it turns out I can’t manage. It’s not as if I’m leaving Paris!”

Her parents share a long look with each other; her papa’s mouth is tight, and her mother’s brow creased with worry. “Well,” her papa says after a moment, “it seems like you’ve already decided.”

“Yes,” she says, “that’s what I said to begin with.”

This, finally, makes him smile a little. “Then I’ll simply need to offer what advice I can,” he concedes. “And I’m sure your mother will do the same.”

“You’ll visit us, won’t you?” Fantine asks, reaching over to catch her arm. “And let us know how we can help?”

“Yes, Maman,” Cosette says sweetly. “If you like, I’ll call you every week to tell you how I’m doing.”

“And you’ll let us help you pack,” her mother adds.

She shakes her head, laughing. “As if Papa would let me carry my things out of the house by myself! You’ll help me move in, I expect, and I’ll hardly refuse.”

“That shall give us a chance to meet your roommate,” her papa says thoughtfully. “I’d be happier if we could, myself, and know it’s someone respectable - and someone who will give you the respect _you_ deserve.”

“Speaking of my roommate,” she says, and rises. “I ought to see if I’ve gotten any responses. Is that alright?”

“Help clean up, first,” Fantine tells her, standing as well. “Come, Cosette, let’s clear the table.”

 

* * *

 

 

She disappears to her room upstairs after the kitchen has been cleaned up to check her messages, and finds to her great delight that she has an email with the subject line _Roommate advertisement,_ which she opens at once, beaming. 

> _Hey, I’m a student about to start my second year at Nouvelle. I live outside the city so I had a commute last year, but now that I’ve got a steady job here too I’d like to find a place to live close by if I can. You said you’ve lived in Paris for a long time - you could acquaint me with city life and I can acquaint you with the university!_
> 
> _I do come with a snake, but it’s a very little one. I also come with fashion tips, hair dye, intimate knowledge of drink mixing, and two partners who might stop by sometimes._
> 
> _Meet for coffee sometime?_
> 
>  
> 
> _Musichetta Marchand_

 

There’s a picture attached, an artfully lit portrait of the sender with sharp makeup and tight-wound curls. Cosette grins.

 

 _Hi!_ she types in response.

 

> _Coffee sounds great - I would really like to meet you and get to know a little more about you! Could we arrange something next week? Where would you like to get it?_
> 
> _Thank you for contacting me, and let me know about arrangements!_
> 
>  
> 
> _Cosette Fauchelevent_

 

She snaps a picture to attach to the email, which isn’t half as pretty or artistic as Musichetta’s, but she offers her prettiest smile and sweeps up her bangs, and she looks presentable enough. Still smiling from ear to ear, she sends it and jumps up to go back downstairs and tell her parents.

Almost at the doorway, she stops outside the living room when she catches her mother’s voice. “I don’t want her to go,” she’s saying; she sounds choked up. “Jean, she’s my little girl.”

“She’s not so little anymore,” her papa replies, and Cosette hears him sigh heavily. “My God, Fantine! When did she get so big? When did that dear child become a woman?”

Fantine sobs very quietly, and Cosette swallows against a lump in her throat. There’s a long moment of silence, and then her mother says, “She’s outgrown us, now, hasn’t she? We weren’t even looking and my Euphrasie grew up.”

“Hush,” her papa answers in a low voice, and they both fall silent again.

Cosette turns away and creeps back up the stairs to her room.

It’s nearly an hour later that Fantine knocks softly on the door and looks around the edge. “Goodnight, Cosette,” she says, smiling a little sadly. “Sleep well.”

Cosette leaps to her feet and crosses the room in a step to throw her arms around her mother’s neck and bury her face in Fantine’s shoulder. “I love you, Maman,” she murmurs.

Her mother pulls her close against her chest, stroking back her hair. “I love you,” she says, and presses a kiss to the top of Cosette’s head. 

 


End file.
